


the unknown and static strange

by extasiswings



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Multi, Rittenhouse Wyatt, Timeless Fanfic Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 23:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12000132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: For the Septober Timeless Fanfic Contest. Prompt: "Wyatt, you look like hell.""Wyatt?" She echoes. “WyattLogan?”Lucy’s tongue sticks in her suddenly too dry mouth, dread dropping into her stomach like the heaviest of boulders.“Of course Wyatt Logan,” Flynn replies once it’s clear Lucy can’t. “He was in the hospital with a gunshot wound when we left.”Agent Christopher looks between the two of them, her lips pressing into the thin line of someone who knows what they’re about to say won’t be taken well.





	the unknown and static strange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rachelbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelbee/gifts).



> I take no responsibility for this. I was minding my own business when a certain someone came into my inbox and sent me the incredibly rude prompt for Garcyatt angst where they return from a mission to find Wyatt is Rittenhouse. (Of course, being me, I loved it, but shhhhhhh don't blame the...do I count as a messenger in this case? I think I do)

“Wyatt, you look like hell,” Lucy sighs from the doorway of the hospital room. 

“Really, Logan?” Flynn asks, far less sympathetic as Lucy pushes past him to get to the bed. 

Wyatt holds up his hands. “A little old lady was being robbed,” he defends. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t have stepped in too.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t have ended up with a hole in my side from some punkass kid who probably barely even knew how to hold the damn gun,” Flynn replies. 

“Hey,” Lucy snaps, glaring between the two of them. “Not the time.”

Turning her attention to Wyatt, she gently pushes his hair off his forehead before he catches her hand and presses it to his lips.

“I’m okay,” he assures quietly. “I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

He cuts his eyes to where Flynn is still standing barely past the door, a telltale stiffness in the lines of his body that’s at odds with the carefully crafted disinterest in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean to worry you, either,” Wyatt adds.

Flynn cracks and takes a few steps further into the room. Lucy _tsks_ , but the way she sniffs just afterwards betrays her lack of composure. 

“Idiot,” she scolds—her eyes are dry, but the emotion in her voice is clear enough as she links her fingers through Wyatt’s and reaches out her other hand to Flynn.

“You don’t always have to be a hero, you know,” she continues. “We need you. Alive, and preferably in one piece.”

“It’ll take more than—what was it you said? _Some punkass kid_ to take me away from the two of you.”

Lucy’s phone rings then, too loud in the silence of the room. She ignores it, but when Flynn’s phone goes off as well a moment after she sends the call to voicemail, her stomach sinks. 

It’s Rufus.

“You should go,” Wyatt says.

“Not without you,” she starts to argue, but he shakes his head and shares a glance with Flynn over her shoulder.

“It could be hours before they let me out of here,” he replies. “Who knows what Rittenhouse could do with that kind of head start. You have to go after them.”

She doesn’t want to. Every inch of her is screaming not to leave, and when she looks over at Flynn she can tell he likes the thought of leaving Wyatt alone about as much as she does.

But...he’s also right.

_I love you,_ Lucy thinks, biting her lip so the words don’t accidentally trip off her tongue unbidden. It’s not something they say, the three of them. Not with words anyway. With subtext, with glances, with touches—eyes and bodies and mouths—but not with words. She’s not going to rock the boat now.

“You better be here when we get back,” she says instead, and Wyatt’s mouth quirks.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And, Flynn?” He adds. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

Flynn rolls his eyes. “I’m not you, Texas. I don’t need a reminder.”

“Pretty sure that knife wound from last time begs to differ.”

“It was barely a _scratch_ —”

Lucy tunes out the familiar bickering and breathes, trying to loosen the knot in her chest. It’s just another mission. Even without Wyatt, it’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. 

She tells herself it isn’t a lie.

* * *

“Mission report.”

“Not reporting. I have a name for you.”

“What’s the name?”

“Wyatt Logan. Soldier. Delta Force.”

“I see. Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Copy that.”

* * *

There’s something eerie about going back to D.C, just days after the first time they were there in 1972. There’s something even more off-putting about the fact that Rittenhouse doesn’t seem to _do_ anything—just leads them on a wild goose chase for a few hours before leaving again. As far as Lucy can tell, they didn’t even try to change anything, which is...unsettling.

Flynn and Rufus are clearly just as uncomfortable as she is when they all pile back into the Lifeboat to return home, but Lucy tries not to think about it too much, tries to look forward to seeing Wyatt again sooner than expected. 

_Everything’s fine,_ she tells herself. _Everything’s fine, everything’s fine, everything’s fine._

Everything is very much not fine.

“How’s Wyatt doing?” Lucy asks as soon as they’re back on solid ground. Agent Christopher’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Wyatt?” She echoes. “Wyatt _Logan_?”

Lucy’s tongue sticks in her suddenly too dry mouth, dread dropping into her stomach like the heaviest of boulders.

“Of course Wyatt Logan,” Flynn replies once it’s clear Lucy can’t. “He was in the hospital with a gunshot wound when we left.”

Agent Christopher looks between the two of them, her lips pressing into the thin line of someone who knows what they’re about to say won’t be taken well.

“Wyatt Logan is Rittenhouse,” she says. “He helped Emma Whitmore steal the Mothership back and then vanished. But that was months ago now—”

“No.” Lucy’s voice is foreign to her own ears, so much that she doesn’t even realize she’s spoken until Flynn’s hand settles on her shoulder.

Agent Christopher’s face twists in sympathy. “Lucy, I’m so sor—”

“ _No_ ,” Lucy repeats, pulling away from her, from Flynn. It’s a cruel joke, that’s all. A terrible story, and one that’s in very poor taste.

_Wyatt Logan is Rittenhouse._

She doesn’t hear the rest of the explanation if there is one. Her pulse is rushing in her ears, her heart pounding too loud, too fast. Behind her, Rufus has gone ashen.

_I have to go_ , she thinks, only realizing that she’s actually said it aloud when all other background conversation stops.

“Lucy…” Agent Christopher starts, but Lucy ignores her, her gaze seeking out Flynn’s.

He’s looking at her, face set in stone, a cool mask of composure. But his eyes, those are far less calm.

“Garcia, take me home,” Lucy says quietly, half a question, half a command. _Take me home before I shatter._

He nods and takes her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles softly enough that it threatens to undo her right there. And then he leads her out the door. 

They do, in fact, make it back to her house before she falls to pieces. But the sight of her—their—living room without Wyatt’s things scattered around sends her over the edge.

Lucy isn’t sure how long she cries, is only half-conscious of Flynn’s arms around her, of his chest against her cheek. She’s so tired of losing people—Amy, her mother, Wyatt—who is Rittenhouse going to take from her next?

She’s not sure she can survive another loss.

As she pulls back far enough to take in Flynn’s own red eyes and the tightness in his jaw, she’s not sure he can either.

Sleep doesn’t come easily that night.

* * *

Of course, it’s one thing to know something logically. It’s something else entirely to be actively confronted by it.

And old habits die hard. Which is how, without thinking, Lucy finds herself standing between Wyatt and Flynn a week later, staring down the barrel of Wyatt’s gun after a mission gone very wrong. 

“Lucy. Move,” Wyatt orders through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off Flynn.

“No,” she replies, even as Flynn curses under his breath. 

“ _Move_.”

“ _No._ ”

“Dammit, Lucy, he killed my wife!”

All three of them freeze.

“What?” Flynn croaks from behind her. 

Wyatt’s hands tremble ever-so-slightly as he grips his gun tighter. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

“Wyatt, I swear I don’t.”

“Like hell—”

“Who told you he killed Jessica? Rittenhouse?” Lucy interrupts before things can get any more tense.

For the first time, Wyatt looks somewhat unsure. “It was...Cahill. Your father. When he recruited me.”

Lucy wants to scream. Instead she forces herself to take a breath and let it out slowly. Of course it was him. Of course it was. And suddenly their return to 1972 makes much more sense.

“Wyatt, listen to me,” she says. “Flynn didn’t kill Jessica. It was Rittenhouse. It’s always been Rittenhouse. We found out right before you got shot, and I know you aren’t going to remember that, but please. Please trust me.”

“I don’t—I can’t—” Wyatt wavers and Lucy takes a tentative step towards him. It’s stupid, maybe. It’s a risk—she doesn’t know what her relationship with him was like in this timeline before he left—but at the very least, he hasn’t seemed willing to kill her, so maybe, just maybe, he’ll be willing to trust her too.

“I love you.” The words slip off her tongue before she even realizes they’ve formed and Wyatt starts, his eyes shooting to hers. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Wyatt. Certainly not about this. Please. You have to believe me.”

“I—they said—” He looks lost, a far cry from the hardened soldier from a few moments prior.

“Did they say why I did it?” Flynn asks.

“I—no,” Wyatt acknowledges, even more doubt slipping into his expression. “They just said it was you.”

“What reason could he have had?” Lucy adds. “Wyatt...Rittenhouse has far more reason to lie to you than we do. Far more. You may think you can trust them, but you can’t. Us though—or even just me if that’s all you’re comfortable with—you can trust us. I swear on my life. On Amy. _Please._ ”

He lowers the gun.

“Wyatt—”

Footsteps from the hall make him raise the gun again, but when he fires it isn’t at either of them, but at the Rittenhouse agent coming through the door. When he looks back at them, he only has one thing to say.

“Go.”

For a moment, Lucy wants to argue, wants to insist that he come with them, but strong arms wrap around her waist like iron bands and pull her back.

“No—Garcia, wait—Wyatt— _Wyatt_ —”

“Take care of her,” Wyatt calls after them, and Flynn meets his eyes over the top of her head and nods.

* * *

She doesn’t expect to see him again. In fact, Lucy expects to see Wyatt again about as much as Flynn expects her to forgive him for dragging her away.

As it happens, they both end up surprised. 

The doorbell rings on a Saturday right as Lucy and Flynn are sitting down to eat breakfast. In the doorway, Wyatt stands with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and his other hand in a pocket, a guarded look on his face.

“I don’t trust you. Not yet,” he says to Flynn, once they’ve recovered from the initial shock of opening the door. “But I trust you,” he adds, glancing over at Lucy. “And I...I want to find the truth. So, I’ll work with you. If you’ll have me back.”

There are no big, romantic declarations—things have changed too much for that—and they don’t mention Lucy’s slip of the tongue from before. But as they step aside to let Wyatt into the house, it feels...a little like hope.

A new beginning.

It isn’t the worst thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Reckless" by MSMR. I found the line "only when we're lost/can we find ourselves again" to be particularly applicable.


End file.
